Articulated Indigeneity and Tourism in Hawaiʻi

The guiding research question for this thesis asks how Hawaiian indigeneity and self-determination are articulated within tourism spaces in Hawaiʻi. This thesis research works to uncover the nuanced ways that Hawaiian indigeneity is employed to manage and regulate tourism activities in Hawaiʻi. I seek to question the narrative that Hawaiians consent to, and prosper from, the largely unregulated mass tourism complex that has become a focal point of the post-colonial state. Native Hawaiians have actively resisted the erosion of their culture, lands, and nation through strategies that employ multiple understandings of indigeneity. We should not assume that the tourism industry in Hawaiʻi operates free from formal and informal management, governance and resistance activities. I argue that tourism management strategies developed from Native Hawaiian political, economic, religious, and cultural traditions should be studied to asses how complex dynamics of power and knowledge are manifested in Hawaiʻi. I suggest that the authentic employment of Hawaiian values and tradition act in stark contrast to the commodification of Hawaiian culture long perpetrated by the tourism industry. Additionally, I found that movements in favor of the repossession of Hawaiʻi’s cultural image place Hawaiian people’s agency at the forefront of tourism inversing traditional host-visitor power relations

Fantastic Epibionts and Where to Find Them

The interactions between marine epibionts and their hosts are indicative of marine community compositions and stability. Documenting these interactions allows for a better understanding of marine ecosystem health and long-term changes in response to environmental disturbance, such as climate change. In this thesis, I examined and digitized a selection of mollusk specimens and their associated epibionts from the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History (CUMNH) Invertebrate Zoology collections and assessed the host/epibiont diversity and distribution through time. Digitized specimen resources will be accessible through UCM Specify database and other public global biodiversity information platforms. Out of the 438 bivalve specimens examined, 309 have associated epibionts, including tube worms, barnacles, bryozoans, algae, and bivalves. By cataloguing epibionts that are largely overlooked by the museum community, I hope to highlight the viability of using museum specimens to document biological interactions through time, and their significant value to the biological research community.</p

Cloning and Joint Measurements of Incompatible Components of Spin

A joint measurement of two observables is a {\it simultaneous} measurement of both quantities upon the {\it same} quantum system. When two quantum-mechanical observables do not commute, then a joint measurement of these observables cannot be accomplished by projective measurements alone. In this paper we shall discuss the use of quantum cloning to perform a joint measurement of two components of spin associated with a qubit system. We introduce a cloning scheme which is optimal with respect to this task. This cloning scheme may be thought to work by cloning two components of spin onto its outputs. We compare the proposed cloning machine to existing cloners.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR

Temporal trends, 2000-2017, of perfluoroalkyl acid (PFAA) concentrations in serum of Swedish adolescents

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been extensively used as surfactants because of their high stability and good water/oil-repellent properties. PFASs, especially perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs), have long biological half-lives, and exposure may cause adverse health effects in humans. We assessed temporal trends of concentrations of eight PFAAs in serum of Swedish adolescents (age 16-21 years) from the general population, and estimated the stability of PFAAs and serum samples after 6 years of storage. Repeated cross-sectional sampling was performed on five occasions (covering in total 1213 individuals, 83% males) in southern Sweden between 2000 and 2017. We analyzed serum for perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluoroheptanoic acid (PFHpA), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA), perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFUnDA), and perfluorododecanoic acid (PFDoDA) using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. We assessed time trends using linear regression, long-term stability was assessed by reanalyzing samples collected 2013, and the comparison was done using Pearson correlation and Bland-Altman plots. PFHxS, PFOS, and PFOA decreased by 6.7% (CI: -7.0, -6.3%), 12.6% (CI: -12.9, -12.3%), and 6.5% (CI: -6.8, -6.1%) per year, respectively, and year of sampling explained 48-81% of the variation in concentrations. PFNA and PFDA seemed to increase up to 2009 and decrease thereafter. The trends were consistent after sensitivity analyses excluding women. Strong correlations of 94-97% were observed for concentrations of all compounds, except PFHxS, after storage. The observed trends closely followed the timing of manufacturers' voluntary phaseout initiatives, and of regulatory measures governing the compounds implemented in the EU and USA. This indicates that these actions mitigated the population's exposure to PFHxS, PFOS, and PFOA and, in recent years, to PFNA and PFDA, in southern Sweden. Furthermore, the results suggest that PFAAs remain stable in serum samples after long-term storage

Applying the GBS technique for the genomic characterization of a Danish population of European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus)

The objective of the study was to establish and refine a method for the genomic characterization of European hedgehogs in Denmark using the second-generation genotyping technique, genotyping by sequencing (GBS). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were filtered with a read coverage between 20 - 100 and a maximum number of missing data of 25 %. Individuals with &gt; 25 % missing data were removed yielding a total of 2.4 million SNPs, and after filtering for Minor allele frequency (MAF) &gt;1 %, 2902 SNPs remained. Approximately half of the individuals analysed contained less than 75% of the selected SNPs, and were removed, resulting in a sample size of 30. We estimated inbreeding coefficients (F), observed (HO), expected (HE) and unbiased expected (uHE) heterozygosity and the percent of polymorphic loci (P%). We tested for deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) and patterns of isolation by distance (IBD). We assessed the genetic structure of the sampled individuals based on a Bayesian clustering method, and tested for recent population expansion or decline. We found a P% = 94.5%, a uHE and HE of mean ± SE; 0.31 ± 0.04 and 0.30 ± 0.02, respectively and an HO of 0.290 ± 0.03. The heterozygosity deficiency was reflected in a positive F-value; 0.1 ± 0.01 and a significant deviation for HWE (p &lt; 0.05). The Mantel test for association between the genetical and geographical distances of populations was not significant (b = 0.007, R = 0.145, p &gt; 0.05). The significant and positive F-value found, was explained by inbreeding, genetic substructure and low effective population size (Ne) which are all consequences of habitat fragmentation. We failed to detect recent signs of a population bottleneck or expansion. Further studies on a larger scale are needed to obtain a general view of the conservation status of the Danish hedgehog populatio

A novel compound, 1,1-dimethyl-5-(1-hydroxypropyl)-4,6,7-trimethylindan, is an effective inhibitor of the tet(K) gene-encoded metal-tetracycline/H+ antiporter of Staphylococcus aureus

AbstractA novel indan derivative, 1,1-dimethyl-5-(1-hydroxypropyl)-4,6,7-trimethylindan (Ro 07-3149), was found to be a strong inhibitor of the tet(K) gene-encoded tetracycline/H+ antiporter of Staphylococcus aureus. One micromole of this compound per mg membrane protein was enough for complete inhibition of the Tet(K)-mediated tetracycline transport and tetracycline-coupled proton transport, without the energy state of the membrane being affected. The mode of inhibition was non-competitive. Although this compound caused membrane de-energization at a high concentration, the IC50 value for de-energization (7.3 μmol/mg membrane protein) was about 17 times and 33 times higher than the values for Tet(K)-mediated proton/tetracycline antiport and [3H]tetracycline transport, respectively, indicating that the inhibitory action of Ro 07-3149 is not due to the uncoupling effect of the inhibitor

Joint measurements of spin, operational locality and uncertainty

Joint, or simultaneous, measurements of non-commuting observables are possible within quantum mechanics, if one accepts an increase in the variances of the jointly measured observables. In this paper, we discuss joint measurements of a spin 1/2 particle along any two directions. Starting from an operational locality principle, it is shown how to obtain a bound on how sharp the joint measurement can be. We give a direct interpretation of this bound in terms of an uncertainty relation.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Joint measurements and Bell inequalities

Joint quantum measurements of non-commuting observables are possible, if one accepts an increase in the measured variances. A necessary condition for a joint measurement to be possible is that a joint probability distribution exists for the measurement. This fact suggests that there may be a link with Bell inequalities, as these will be satisfied if and only if a joint probability distribution for all involved observables exists. We investigate the connections between Bell inequalities and conditions for joint quantum measurements to be possible. Mermin's inequality for the three-particle Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state turns out to be equivalent to the condition for a joint measurement on two out of the three quantum systems to exist. Gisin's Bell inequality for three co-planar measurement directions, meanwhile, is shown to be less strict than the condition for the corresponding joint measurement